So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while and how Blue/Amber in particular tends to be susceptible to cults of personality. There are a couple articles about how the GOP has become a cult of Trump, and we see this in how they are acting. For example, the Democratic Governor of Kansas implemented many of the nationwide recommendations for social distancing, limiting public gatherings, etc, to help slow the spread of Covid-19. The Republican controlled state legislature, however, overrode the Governor and is now rolling back many of the CDC recommended actions that the Governor took. This is obviously not a rational decision they’ve done given it will almost certainly extend the time Covid-19 is in their state (especially rolling back the limiting of religious gatherings).
This is not something sane people do when faced with something that is life threatening. Yet the cognitive dissonance seems so great in the Republican party today (with only a very small set of exceptions, like Mitt Romney) that I can’t think of anything we can do to remove them from power through normal mechanisms until they can come to their senses. They clearly haven’t got a grasp on any sense of collective reality and have so fully eaten postmodernism that they seem perfectly okay living in a reality that is out of alignment with the actual evidence. Healthy democracy requires some degree of self-reflection and the ability to entertain ideas that aren’t our own, and that will never happen with the current state of the Republican party. It’s become “us vs. them.”
I suppose my question is, what do we do about Republicans? At this point, their lack of a grasp of collective reality is going to cost lives, and they are doing everything they can to cling to power (gerrymandering, things like in Kansas and Wisconsin designed to yank back power from Democratic governors, re-writing history / reality, etc). There seems to be a complete lack of self-reflection and their actions seem to purely be coming from defensiveness, which I’m guessing is unhealthy Blue and Red’s egocentrism. What’s worse is that this brand of ego-driven ethnocentrism is spreading like a virus to many other countries (Brazil and Turkey in particular). So, what do we do? What will actually work in the Integral landscape?
Thoughts?
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Hi Russ,
I’ve wondered about this too. On the personal, I engage anyone that I come upon that is more centered in Red/Blue/Amber orientations and practice integrating what I experience with them, welcoming their ideas, acknowledging the limits and gifts I sense in their particular worldview, and connecting with them as people to the degree that is possible in any given moment and context. I also continue to run my business, love my beloveds, deepend in friendships and community, expand in wisdom, continue my inner growth, and create music. On the collective level, there are larger forces at play, I think policy changes are already occurring within the Republican party that a year ago no one could have imagined. I see major changes in the instituations occuring around voting, ‘handouts’, etc. In some ways, I trust this process, being messy as it is… evolving forward as the stages do there thing in us… being called forward and us wrestling in the process with the fears of going into the next stage and yet drawn to do so at the same time.
I continue to look for how I am ‘othering’ people or how I refuse to see and feel their difference while seeing how there is unity which is another skillset I think being called for in these times. If you work in politics there is lots that can be done or even to engage on the local level. I have been in touch with my local Oregon State Senator and learning a lot from his running and campaign, no pac money, transparent, accountible, etc. and he has a clear willingness to engage republicans and work with them as well as call them out on the BS that shows up. It’s clearly messy right now. I look at what I can do personally and keep my pulse on the trends emerging and see how I can contribute to keeping the current flowing… and the Cosmos has got this on another level. I think as time goes on the self-reflection will come in the GOP… in one form or another. Same for the DNC. It happens just not in the ways we always want or expect. I don’t have advice for you, just what I am doing and being… do-be-do-be-do 
Scooby almost had it…
I live in north central Florida and was a Republican until 2016. I’ve thought about this issue quite a bit in the past four years.
The Republican party as it stands right now comprises grifters, religious loons and oligarchs or more generally a combination of amber religion/community and orange supply side economics while tilted strongly toward individual agency. (Small wonder that other countries copying this model end up with faux-populist authoritarians like Erdogan, Orban, Modi, Bolsonaro etc.) The Democratic party comprises green communitarians and multiculturalists, union labor and orange neoliberals and is a bit of a mess in terms of its rainbow coalition.
Given this backdrop and given the fact that millennials are much more oriented toward communities (with social network infrastructures) it’s quite likely that we’ll see a “take care of everyone” economics post covid-19 and a social movement that focuses on multiple communities pitching in an “all hands on deck” approach this decade. If this analysis is accurate, the white working class which supported Trump is likely to fall further behind in the short term as they will find it difficult to navigate a quasi-socialist economy and a highly diverse society that focuses on building resilience and handling climate change. But if Wilber/Spiral Dynamics etc. are correct, this has to be temporary right? The kids of the white working class (probably born in 2020) have to be the ones to break the logjam created by the millennials and help us move toward an integral society. They’ll probably be the equivalent of the boomers going forward in this cycle/spiral arc and the harbingers of a new culture.
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